North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, said he could improve ties with the United States if Washington recognized his country as a nuclear weapons state, state media reported on Thursday, as Pyongyang concluded its biggest political event in five years.
Mr. Kim made the remarks at the ruling Workers’ Party congress, a seven-day long meeting that ended on Wednesday. The gathering, which happens once every five years, was closely watched by officials and analysts in the region as Mr. Kim used it to unveil his foreign policy outlines for the next five years.
Mr. Kim’s diplomatic heft has increased in recent years. He has sent North Korean troops and weapons to aid Russia’s war against Ukraine and reinvigorated ties with Moscow. He has also aligned his country more closely with Beijing while President Trump wooed him for a possible resumption of high-level negotiations.
In speeches delivered during the congress, Mr. Kim reaffirmed his intention of expanding North Korea’s nuclear force and consolidating its “status as a nuclear-armed state,” the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said on Thursday. In a message apparently directed at Mr. Trump, Mr. Kim also said his country could engage in either “peaceful coexistence” or a “permanent standoff,” depending on Washington’s attitude.
“I don’t see any reason not to get along well with the United States if it withdraws its hostile policy toward us and respects our current status” as a nuclear-armed country, Mr. Kim said in an extensive speech over the weekend.
North Korea has long insisted on being recognized as a nuclear weapons power. It has also called for an end to American-led international sanctions. During the party meeting, Mr. Kim appeared to reaffirm that stance with more vigor and confidence, as his diplomatic fortunes have improved in the wake of Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
North Korea has since provided Russia with thousands of troops and millions of artillery shells. In return, Moscow has supplied North Korea with food, oil, weapons technology and other assistance. And the two countries have revived their Cold War-era mutual defense treaty.
And while competition between Washington and Beijing has intensified, China has drawn closer to North Korea. Along with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, he was a guest of honor at a military parade in Beijing hosted by Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
At the same time, Mr. Trump has repeatedly expressed his interest in restarting negotiations with Mr. Kim, boasting of a “good relationship” with the North Korean dictator and calling him a “nuclear power.” North Korea has not directly responded to Mr. Trump’s overtures. But Mr. Kim has said he had “good memories” of Mr. Trump, leading analysts to speculate that he might return to the negotiating table if Washington offered the right incentives, such as easing economic sanctions.
“The prospects for North Korea-U.S. relations depend entirely on the attitude of the U.S. side,” Mr. Kim said during the party congress.
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At North Korea’s last party congress, in 2021, things did not look good for Mr. Kim. American-led U.N. sanctions had devastated North Korea’s economy. Mr. Kim sought to lift them through direct diplomacy during Mr. Trump’s first term at the White House. But their negotiations ended in 2019 without a deal. Then, the pandemic further crippled the North’s economy.
Following the collapse of the Kim-Trump talks, North Korea cut off all dialogue with the United States and doubled down on expanding its nuclear arsenal. It has also voiced a deep mistrust of South Korea, which had mediated between Mr. Kim and Mr. Trump. It has declared that it no longer regarded South Korea as part of the same nation but rather as an enemy that it would subjugate — if necessary, with nuclear weapons — should war break out.
At the congress, Mr. Kim appeared to reaffirm that policy, despite efforts by South Korea’s new leader, Lee Jae Myung, to restore inter-Korean dialogue. Since taking office in June, Mr. Lee has taken unilateral measures for reconciliation, such as ending propaganda broadcasts along the border.
But Mr. Kim dismissed Mr. Lee’s gestures as “deceptive.”
“We will never have a cause for discussing things with South Korea, which is the most hostile entity,” Mr. Kim said in the weekend speech.
His remarks signaled that North Korea was “keeping the possibility of dialogue open with the United States,” said Yang Moo-jin, a former president of the Seoul-based University of North Korean Studies. “But it intends to approach relations with the United States without going through South Korea.”
On Wednesday evening, North Korea held a large military parade in Pyongyang to celebrate the congress and Mr. Kim’s leadership.
More than a decade ago, when Mr. Kim exhorted his country to prioritize building a nuclear arsenal at the expense of economic sacrifice, his government told North Koreans that they could live without candies but not without bullets.
“Now we are confident that we can have both candies and bullets,” Ri Il-hwan, a senior member of the Workers’ Party, said on Sunday, when the congress unanimously re-elected Mr. Kim as party general secretary.
Choe Sang-Hun is the lead reporter for The Times in Seoul, covering South and North Korea.
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